The Splendid Table podcast had a guest caller who shared her recipe for umami powder, in October 2017. She’d grown up in Japan, and after returning to the U.S. as an adult, experimented and came up with this flavor-enhancing powder that you can add to American favorites as well as East Asian ones.

Here’s the episode (the umami power segment starts at 41:30 and ends at 46:30), and here’s the recipe. I thought I’d share my experience making it, as well as ways to use it.

Ingredients:

1-oz. package of bonito flakes (makes 6 tablespoons)

1 oz. bulk dried shiitake mushrooms (or if not available in bulk, a small package — use the rest in soups)

small package of kombu (with what you don’t use for umami powder, add half a sheet when cooking dried legumes — it takes the gas out, and you can fish it out before serving )

Tools:

coffee/spice grinder

medium-size bowl

kitchen scale

scissors

small whisk

Instructions:

Fill the coffee/spice grinder with bonito flakes and pulverize into a fine powder. Empty the grinder into the bowl. Repeat until all the bonito flakes are ground up.

Do the same with the shiitakes. You may need to manually break large ones up to fit into the grinder. Repeat as needed. Add the shiitake powder to the bonito flake powder.

Place sheets of kombu on the scale and add/subtract to get one ounce. Use scissors to cut 1/4″ strips of kombu lengthwise, and then cut across the strips to make 1/4″ squares.

Put these into the grinder and grind to a fine powder. Add to the bonito and shiitake powder.

Whisk the three powders gently to mix well.

Makes 1 cup of light, fluffy powder. I stored it in a jar, and you could also put some in a spice container for sprinkling on food.

The originator of this recipe, Erica from Seattle, recommends adding the powder to burgers, meatloaf, and “a savory oatmeal that was phenomenal”.

She also mentions adding it to seafood soups to make them taste like they’ve simmered for hours.

You know when you buy bunches of asparagus to steam or roast, and you snap off the woody ends of the stems because they are so fibrous and chewy?

In the past, I have thrown them away or saved them for stock. But no more!

Today I used them to make a delicious asparagus soup! I added the lemon butter left over from the roasted asparagus I made last night, so as not to waste that wonderful flavor. So this soup is twice frugal.

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